Evening and the setting sun

Caspar David Friedrich, Woman before the setting sun, 1818-20
Caspar David Friedrich, Woman before the setting sun, 1818-20

Kaum einen Hauch / Hardly a breath

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vöglein schweigen im Walde,
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.

Over all the hill tops
There is rest,
In all the tree tops
You can feel
Barely a breath;
The little birds have fallen silent in the woods.
Just wait, soon
You too will be at rest.

Goethe, Wandrers Nachtlied  D 768

Although the birds have roosted and are silent, there is still a hint of movement in the tree tops. Although rest (death, in other words) will come ‘soon’, the patient is still breathing (just). This is as much an ‘evening song’ as a ‘night song.’ It is evening as premonition of night, the process of dying rather than death itself. The sun has set but the twilight is not (quite) darkness.

Over 100 of the texts that Schubert set to music are explicitly set at evening time and it is reasonable to expect that most of these will draw on the inevitable metaphor of the end of the day as the end of human life. However, all of the poets use different aspects of the evening setting to evoke their effects and to avoid cliché.

For Goethe in ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ the essential metaphor centres on the light breezes of evening and the final breaths of a dying human. Anyone who has sat at a deathbed knows the increased attention that we pay to what was previously taken for granted. There is a strange combination of inevitability (death is coming) and uncertainty (was that the last breath?).

While Goethe’s wanderer looked to the tree tops to detect the last gasps of evening, Matthisson turns his attention to a child’s grave and sees the evening breezes swaying the leaves of grass that cover it:


Sanft wehn, im Hauch der Abendluft,
Die Frühlingshalm' auf deiner Gruft,
   Wo Sehnsuchtstränen fallen.

In the breath of the evening breeze they are swaying gently
On your grave - those spring blades of grass - 
Where the tears of longing fall.

Matthisson, Totenkranz für ein Kind D 275

Similarly, Schreiber addresses the moon on an autumn evening:


Du blickst auch auf die Stätte, 
Wo meine Lieben ruhn, 
Wo der Tau fällt auf ihr Grab, 
Und die Gräser drüber wehn 
In dem Abendhauche.  

You also look down on the places
Where my loved ones are resting,
Where the dew falls on their grave,
On top of which the grass sways
In the breath of evening.

Schreiber, An den Mond in einer Herbstnacht   D 614

Sometimes, though, the light breezes of evening are less associated with the process of dying than with a celebration of life and love. In Matthisson’s Geist der Liebe (Spirit of love), the focus is on Venus (the evening star) rather than on the setting sun, and the breeze that sways the grass is the spirit that animates the whole of nature, love itself:


Der Abend schleiert Flur und Hain 
In traulich holde Dämmrung ein; 
Hell flimmt, wo goldne Wölkchen ziehn, 
Der Stern der Liebeskönigin!

Die Wogenflut hallt Schlummerklang, 
Die Bäume lispeln Abendsang, 
Der Wiese Gras umgaukelt lind 
Mit Sylphenkuss der Frühlingswind.   

Der Geist der Liebe wirkt und strebt, 
Wo nur ein Puls der Schöpfung bebt; 
Im Strom, wo Wog' in Woge fließt, 
Im Hain, wo Blatt an Blatt sich schließt.   

The evening is draping the field and woods
With a beautiful, cosy twilight;
Brightly flickering up there where little gold clouds are passing by
Is the star of the goddess of love.

The flooding waves resound with a sleepy sound,
The trees whisper an evening song;
The grass on the meadow flutters about gently
With the kiss of sylphs on the spring breeze.

The spirit of love is at work and is striving
Where only a single pulse of creation is stirring;
In the river, where wave flows into wave,
In the grove, where leaves fold over other leaves.

Matthisson, Geist der Liebe D 414, D 747

Geist der Liebe / Spirit of love

Hölty also produced a text that associates evening with love rather than death. Here he addresses the apple trees where, as a young man, he first fell in love with Julia:


Ein heilig Säuseln und ein Gesangeston
Durchzittre deine Wipfel, o Schattengang,
Wo bang und wild der ersten Liebe
Selige Taumel mein Herz berauschten.

Die Abendsonne bebte wie lichtes Gold
Durch Purpurblüten, bebte wie lichtes Gold
Um ihres Busens Silberschleier;
Und ich zerfloss in Entzückungsschauer.

A holy murmur and the music of a song
Are rustling through your treetops, oh shaded walk,
Where, anxiously and fiercely, first love
Intoxicated my heart in a blessed frenzy.

Like bright gold the evening sun trembled
Through the crimson blossom, trembled like bright gold
Around her breast's silver veil;
And I dissolved in a shudder of delight.

Hölty, An die Apfelbäume, wo ich Julien erblickte  D 197

Apple blossom is white or pink, of course, rather than ‘crimson’ or ‘purple’. It is the setting sun that transforms the blossom and the poet’s encounter with Julia. The golden sun even turns the veil covering her breast into silver.

Julia is not the only love object to be transformed by the light of the setting sun in Schubert’s song texts: there are also Adelaide (D 95), Rosa (D 316), Laura (D 413), Edone (D 445) and Chloe (D 462).

In Kosegarten’s Das Abendrot (Sunset), D 236, the beloved object is not exactly illuminated by the setting sun, it is more that she and her beauty constitute the origin of the sublime ‘rosy’ light that now transforms everything in our sight, sea and land, trees and valleys:


  Der Abend blüht,
     Der Westen glüht!
Wo bist du holdes Licht entglommen,
Aus welchem Stern herabgekommen?
 
     Ein lichter Brand
     Flammt See und Land,
Es lodern in dem roten Scheine
Die Fluren rings und rings die Haine.
 
     Wie sieht so hehr
     Das düstre Meer,
Die Welle tanzt des Glanzes trunken
Und sprüht lusttaumelnd Feuerfunken.

     Es malt der Strahl
     Das liebe Tal,
Dass sie bewohnt, der Holden Holde,
Mit Rosenglut und mattem Golde.

The evening is blossoming,
The west is glowing!
Beauteous light, where did you catch fire,
From which star have you descended?

A bright flame
Sets the sea and land alight.
In the red glow, all ablaze
Are the fields, circling the grove.

How magnificent it looks
The sombre sea.
The waves are dancing, drunk with the glow,
And sparks of fire glitter, staggering with delight.

The rays paint
The beloved valley,
The place inhabited by the beauteous beauty,
With a pink glow and pale gold.

Kosegarten, Das Abendrot  D 236

Ich denke dein
Im Dämmerschein
Der Abendhelle
Am Schattenquelle.
Wo denkst du mein?

I think of you
In the darkening glow
Of evening light
By the shaded spring.
Where do you think of me?

Matthisson, Andenken D 99, D 423

Die tote Welt / The dead world

The red glow of sunset can evoke the rosy cheeks of a beloved and it is a fire that can course through the veins of a lover. Yet in many other poems it points to blood and suffering. Schiller’s remarkable Der Flüchtling (D 67, D 402) of 1781 begins with a traveller contemplating dawn, the red glow of morning (Morgenrot) but he realises that all of the human activity which it sets in motion is something he cannot participate in. As a refugee, he simply does not belong. For him, the world is dead and all that he can look forward to is a sunset that will accompany his ‘long sleep’.


Steig empor, o Morgenrot, und röte
Mit purpurnen Küssen Hain und Feld,
Säusle nieder, o Abendrot und flöte
In sanften Schlummer die tote Welt!
Morgen, ach, du rötest
Eine Totenflur,
Ach und du, o Abendrot umflötest
Meinen langen Schlummer nur.

Climb up, oh dawn, and redden
Grove and field with crimson kisses!
Lower your sighing, sunset, and pipe
The dead world softly to sleep!
Morning, oh, you redden
A field of death;
Oh, and you, sunset, all you do is pipe around
My long sleep.

Schiller,  Der Flüchtling D 67, D 402

The tone of the text as a whole suggests that sunset is operating as a metaphor as much for despair and despondency as for death itself.

Ins stille Land / Into the quiet land

Two poets born in the 1760’s (Matthisson and Salis-Seewis) draw attention to the SOUNDS at sunset. Friedrich von Matthisson’s Der Abend (D 108) begins with the purple of the departing sun and takes us into woods that are as gloomy as burial vaults while Hesperus (the evening star) is reflected in the river. All that can be heard are ‘mournful’ melodies and the chirping of crickets, leading the poet to envisage what the world will sound like from his own grave.


Purpur malt die Tannenhügel
Nach der Sonne Scheideblick,
Lieblich strahlt des Baches Spiegel
Hespers Fackelglanz zurück.

Wie in Totenhallen düster
Wird's im Pappelweidenhain,
Unter leisem Blattgeflüster
Schlummern alle Vögel ein.

Nur dein Abendlied, o Grille,
Tönt noch aus betautem Grün
Durch der Dämmrung Zauberhülle
Süße Trauermelodien.

Tönst du einst im Abendhauche,
Grillchen, auf mein frühes Grab
Aus der Freundschaft Rosenstrauche
Deinen Klaggesang herab:

Wird noch stets mein Geist dir lauschen,
Horchend, wie er jetzt dir lauscht,
Durch des Hügels Blumen rauschen,
Wie dies Sommerlüftchen rauscht.

The pine-covered hill is painted crimson
After the departing glance of the sun;
Lovingly the mirror of the brook
Reflects Hesperus' bright torch.

It is becoming as gloomy as burial vaults
In the groves of poplars;
Under the gently whispering leaves
All the birds fall asleep.

Only your serenade, cricket,
Can still be heard out of the dewy green;
Through the magical cover of dusk
Resound sweet mournful melodies.

If ever you sing in the evening breath,
Cricket, over my early grave,
Out of the rosebush planted by friends
Raising your lament,

My spirit will always listen to you,
Paying attention to you as now
Rustling through flowers on the grave
Like the rustling of this summer breeze.

Matthisson, Der Abend D 108

Salis-Seewis’s ‘Lied’ repeatedly asks who is going to lead us into the land of silence (death) now that the evening skies have clouded over:


Ins stille Land,
Wer leitet uns hinüber? 
Schon wölkt sich uns der Abendhimmel trüber, 
Und immer trümmervoller wird der Strand. 
Wer leitet uns mit sanfter Hand 
Hinüber, ach, hinüber 
Ins stille Land.

Into the quiet land!
Who is going to lead us over there?
The evening sky is already clouding over for us and looking ominous,
And the shore is also becoming increasingly bleak.
Who will take us with a gentle hand and lead us
Over there, oh, over there,
Into the quiet land?

Salis-Seewis, Lied D 403

In the same author’s Der Herbstabend (The autumn evening) the sounds of evening bells accompany a dull sunset and dead leaves fall on a burial plot:


Abendglocken-Halle zittern 
Dumpf durch Moorgedüfte hin.
Hinter jenes Kirchhofs Gittern 
Blasst des Dämmerlichts Karmin.  

Aus umstürmten Lindenzweigen 
Rieselt welkes Laub herab, 
Und gebleichte Gräser beugen 
Sich auf ihr bestimmtes Grab.  

Freundin! wankt, im Abendwinde, 
Bald auch Gras auf meiner Gruft, 
Schwärmt das Laub um ihre Linde 
Ruhelos in feuchter Luft.

The echoes of evening bells are reverberating
But are muffled as they are carried on the moorland breezes;
Behind the fencing of that churchyard
The crimson light of sunset is turning pale.

From the branches of lime trees battered in storms
Dead leaves flutter down,
And faded leaves of grass bend down
Over her designated grave.

Friend! The evening wind will blow
Grass over my grave too very soon,
The foliage will blow around its lime tree
Without respite in the damp air.

Salis-Seewis, Der Herbstabend D 405

Alles scheint dem Dichter redend / Everything appears to be speaking to the poet

The poets born in the 1770s and 1780s tend to be categorised as the first German ‘Romantics’. If by ‘romantic’ we mean a sensitivity to objective nature that is based primarily on subjective perception of experience, Friedrich von Schlegel’s Abendröte (Sunset) poems of 1800-1801 definitely fit the description. At the head of the group comes an evocation of the heightened poetic sensitivity that comes as the sun sets (Schubert’s D 690):


Tiefer sinket schon die Sonne,
Und es atmet alles Ruhe,
Tages Arbeit ist vollendet,
Und die Kinder scherzen munter.
Grüner glänzt die grüne Erde,
Eh die Sonne ganz versunken;
Milden Balsam hauchen leise
In die Lüfte nun die Blumen,
Der die Seele zart berühret,
Wenn die Sinne selig trunken.
Kleine Vögel, ferne Menschen,
Berge himmelan geschwungen,
Und der große Silberstrom,
Der im Tale schlank gewunden,
Alles scheint dem Dichter redend,
Denn er hat den Sinn gefunden;
Und das All ein einzig Chor,
Manches Lied aus einem Munde.

The sun is already sinking deeper,
And everything is breathing restfulness,
The day's work has been completed,
And the children are playing about merrily.
The green earth glows greener
Before the sun has totally set;
Soft balsam is gently flowing in the breath
Of flowers carried on the breezes;
The balsam tenderly stirs the soul
As the senses drink blissfully.
Small birds, distant humans,
Mountains sweeping up to the sky,
And the great silver stream
That winds its way slenderly through the valley,
Everything appears to be speaking to the poet,
Since he has discovered the meaning;
And Everything is a single chorus,
Many a song out of only one mouth.

Schlegel, Abendröte D 690

What is remarkable here is that the poet is not simply observing or recording the scene as the sun sets. The writer is processing and ordering the perceptions in creating something unique. What to other observers might have been a jumble of sensations and unconnected sights, sounds and smells has become harmonious and ‘Sinnvoll’: it makes sense, the poet has found and communicated its meaning (Sinn).

Lappe’s Im Abendrot (At sunset / In the red of evening), D 799, similarly focuses on the poet processing the experience of sunset, but the writer is not interested in the complexity of the sensations that have to be absorbed. This poet concentrates on the nature of the light as the sun sets. It is this golden glow, this red flame, that needs to be savoured and digested:


O wie schön ist deine Welt,
Vater, wenn sie golden strahlet,
Wenn dein Glanz hernieder fällt,
Und den Staub mit Schimmer malet;
Wenn das Rot, das in der Wolke blinkt,
In mein stilles Fenster sinkt.

Könnt ich klagen? könnt ich zagen?
Irre sein an dir und mir?
Nein, ich will im Busen tragen
Deinen Himmel schon allhier.
Und dies Herz, eh es zusammenbricht,
Trinkt noch Glut und schlürft noch Licht.

Oh, how beautiful your world is,
Father, when it shines with gold!
When your glow falls down towards us
And paints the dust with its shimmering;
When the red, as it gleams through the clouds,
Sinks into my quiet window!

Could I complain, could I be apprehensive?
Lose my faith in you or me?
No, in my breast I shall carry
All of your heaven here.
And this heart, before it collapses,
Will continue to drink the glow and savour the light.

Lappe, Im Abendrot D 799

When Schubert’s friend Johann Mayrhofer (born 1787) wrote a poem on a similar theme, Freiwilliges Verskinken (Voluntary annihilation), D 700, he decided to allow the setting sun to speak in its own voice (though obviously this is ventriloquism, for it is the poet who is providing the text and the meaning).


Wohin? o Helios! wohin? "In kühlen Fluten
Will ich den Flammenleib versenken,
Gewiss im Innern, neue Gluten
Der Erde feuerreich zu schenken.

Ich nehme nicht, ich pflege nur zu geben,
Und wie verschwenderisch mein Leben,
Umhüllt mein Scheiden goldne Pracht,
Ich scheide herrlich, naht die Nacht.

Wie blass der Mond, wie matt die Sterne,
So lang ich kräftig mich bewege;
Erst wenn ich auf die Berge meine Krone lege,
Gewinnen sie an Mut und Kraft in weiter Ferne."

Where to, oh Helios, where to? "Into the cool tides
I want to plunge this blazing body,
Inwardly certain that new flames
Can be supplied to the earth from my rich supply of fire.

I do not take, I am only concerned to give;
And just as my life has been extravagant,
Golden splendour will surround my departure,
I depart majestically as night approaches.

How pale the moon is, how faint the stars
As long as I move so powerfully!
It is only when I lay my crown on the mountains
That they gain courage and power in the far distance."

Mayrhofer, Freiwilliges Versinken D 700

Here the sun’s departure is a sort of magnificent abdication. While its golden majesty is on display we are unable to see the moon and the stars, whose power only becomes apparent after the sun lays down its crown. Mayrhofer is drawing on the central ‘romantic’ trope of daylight as delusion, and the revelation of true value to sensitive or artistic souls in the world of night, darkness and dreams. Evening and sunset represent that moment of transition from the world of convention and banal clarity to the deeper, more intense world of mystery and insight.

Nacht und Träume / Night and dreams


Neigt sich die Sonne
Mit rötlichem Schein,
Wiege das Liebchen
In Schlummer ein.
Rausche sie murmelnd
In süße Ruh,
Flüstre ihr Träume
Der Liebe zu.

When the sun begins to set
With a reddish glow,
Rock my beloved
To sleep.
Babble and mutter to her
In her sweet rest,
Whisper to her dreams
Of love.

Rellstab, Liebesbotschaft D 957/1

In Rellstab’s Liebesbotschaft (Love’s ambassador), the speaker is addressing a small river, who can pass on messages to a beloved downstream. As the sun sets, the river is invited to rock the beloved to sleep. Evening is lullaby time, and lullabies frequently promise dreams. In this case, the dreams are dreams of love.

On a winter evening, though, the poet might be more nostalgic and the love may be long ago in the past. Leitner’s Der Winterabend (written in 1823) evokes a calm evening after the sun has set when moonlight is coming through the speaker’s window:


Es ist so still, so heimlich um mich,
Die Sonn' ist unter, der Tag entwich.
Wie schnell nun heran der Abend graut,
Mir ist es recht, sonst ist mir's zu laut.
Jetzt aber ist's ruhig, es hämmert kein Schmied,
Kein Klempner, das Volk verlief und ist müd.
Und selbst, dass nicht rassle der Wagen Lauf,
Zog Decken der Schnee durch die Gassen auf.

Wie tut mir so wohl der selige Frieden!
Da sitz ich im Dunkel, ganz abgeschieden,
So ganz für mich. Nur der Mondenschein
Kommt leise zu mir in's Gemach.
Er kennt mich schon, und lässt mich schweigen,
Nimmt nur seine Arbeit, die Spindel, das Gold,
Und spinnet stille, webt und lächelt still
Und hängt dann sein schimmerndes Schleiertuch
Ringsum an Gerät und Wänden aus.
Ist gar ein stiller, ein lieber Besuch,
Macht mir gar keine Unruh im Haus,
Will er bleiben, so hat er Ort,
Freut's ihn nimmer, so geht er fort.

Ich sitze dann stumm im Fenster gern
Und schaue hinauf in Gewölk und Stern.
Denke zurück, ach, weit, gar weit,
In eine schöne, verschwund'ne Zeit.
Denk an Sie, an das Glück der Minne,
Seufze still und sinne und sinne.

It is so quiet, so secret around me,
The sun is down, the day has fled.
How quickly the evening is now turning things grey.
That is ideal for me, it would be too loud otherwise.
But now it is calm, there is no blacksmith hammering,
No plumber, the people have dispersed and they are tired;
And, so that the carriages do not rattle as they go by,
The snow has laid down coverings over the alley-ways.

How much it suits me, this blessed peace!
I sit there in the darkness, totally cut off,
So totally self-contained; - only the moonlight
Comes gently to me in my room.
He already knows me, and lets me sit in silence,
He just takes up his work, the spindle, the gold,
And quietly spins, weaves and smiles quietly,
And then hangs his shimmering veil
Around the room and the walls.
It is really a quiet, a dear visit,
Making no disturbance in the house.
If he wants to stay, there is a place for him,
If he is no longer enjoying it, then he leaves.

I then happily sit mute in the window,
And I look up at the clouds and the stars.
I think back, alas, far, far back,
To a beautiful time that has disappeared.
I think about her, about the happiness of love,
I sigh quietly, and reflect, and reflect.

Leitner, Der Winterabend D 938

Here the long evening is grey rather than red. The moon and the stars are out long before humans go to bed, but it is still ‘evening’. There are reflections on past happiness rather than dreams of future bliss. Above all, things are quiet. There is no trouble. The world is at peace.

Like Goethe’s wanderer (who we began with) the speaker is contemplating death as evening turns quietly into night. It does not really matter whether the speaker is a widower still reflecting on the loss of a dear wife or a spurned lover whose dreams came to nothing, the effect is the same. Absence is a sort of death.

Der sanfte Schlaf, des Todes Bruder / Soft sleep, death’s brother

As the sun sets and evening turns into night, human beings turn in. As so many lullabies remind us, human sleep prefigures human death. A number of unavoidable metaphors come together to establish an ambiguity, though. ‘Sleep is death’ leads to associating cradles and beds with coffins and graves, with the crucial difference that we are unlikely to emerge from the latter. ‘Sunset is the end of human life’ might represent the end of a linear narrative (death is the final curtain) or, alternatively, it is part of a recurring cycle and every sunset carries the promise of sunrise tomorrow. Abendrot (red sky at evening) prefigures Morgenrot (dawn).

Karoline Pichler captured something of this ambiguity when she used the phrase ‘täglich Grab’ (daily grave) to refer to a bed:


Die Nacht bricht an, mit leisen Lüften sinket
Sie auf die müden Sterblichen herab;
Der sanfte Schlaf, des Todes Bruder, winket
Und legt sie freundlich in ihr täglich Grab.

Night falls; with gentle breezes it settles
Down over the tired mortals.
Soft sleep, death's brother, beckons
And in a friendly way lays them down in their daily graves.

Pichler, Der Unglückliche  D 713, D deest

Who knows if we will wake up in the morning? Who knows that we definitely will not? This was Hamlet’s dilemma:


To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come . . .?

It is not surprising, then, that few of Schubert’s poets felt confident enough to assert that death is ‘the end’, that after sunset there will be no further sunrise. Kosegarten’s ‘Schwangesang’ (D 318) gives voice to an exhausted individual who cannot wait to die:


Endlich stehn die Pforten offen,
Endlich winkt das kühle Grab,
Und nach langem Fürchten, Hoffen,
Neig ich mich die Nacht hinab.
Durchgewacht sind nun die Tage
Meines Lebens, süße Ruh 
Drückt nach ausgeweinter Klage
Mir die müden Wimpern zu.

Auge, schleuß dich. Strahl der Sonnen,
Wecke nicht den Schläfer mehr.
Seine Sanduhr ist verreronnen;
Seine Kräfte Sprudel leer.

At last the gates are open,
At last the cool grave is beckoning,
And after long fears and hope
Night is now bending me down.
I have now stayed awake through the days
Of my life. Sweet rest,
After complaints that have cried themselves out, rest is pressing
Onto my tired eyelids.

Eyes, close! Ray of sunlight,
Do not wake up the sleeper again.
His timer has run down.
The source of his strength has dried up.

However, the final stanza of this long lament changes the tone. The metaphor of ‘death is sleep’ forces the poet to contemplate resurrection:


Ewig wird die Nacht nicht dauern,
Ewig dieser Schlummer nicht.
Hinter jenen Gräberschauern
Dämmert unauslöschlich Licht.
Aber bis das Licht mir funkle,
Bis ein schönrer Tag mir lacht,
Sink ich ruhig in die dunkle,
Stille, kühle Schlummernacht.

The night is not going to last for ever,
This sleep is not going to last for ever.
Behind each terrifying grave
An inextinguishable light will dawn.
But until that light shines on me,
Until a more beautiful day laughs on me,
I shall sink peacefully into the dark,
Calm, cool night of sleep.

Kosegarten, Schwangesang D 318

It was not inevitable that ‘optimistic’ readings of the metaphor of sunset / sunrise would point to resurrection, though. For Gabriele von Baumberg the promise was more down-to-earth: tomorrow I am going to see my beloved!


Sinke, liebe Sonne, sinke,
Ende deinen trüben Lauf,
Und an deine Stelle winke
Bald den Mond herauf.

Herrlicher und schöner dringe
Aber Morgen dann herfür,
Liebe Sonn'! und mit dir bringe
Meinen Lieben mir.

Set, dear sun, set!
End your dreary course,
And in your place signal to
The moon to take over soon.

Appear more majestic and beautiful
Tomorrow, coming through,
Dear sun! and with you bring
Me my beloved.

von Baumberg, An die Sonne D 270

Abendbilder / Evening pictures

Perhaps one of the most interesting conclusions that can be drawn from this analysis of the imagery in Schubert’s ‘evening’ texts is that the poets relished ambiguity and tension. Their poems tend to avoid simplistic and obvious assertions (such as sunset reminds us that our own death will result in total oblivion); they prefer to evoke different responses and readings (e.g. the sleep of death may or may not promise a re-awakening). Twilight is a time of both diminished understanding and weak perception and also of heightened sensitivity and insight. This is what makes the texts into poems rather than sermons or commonplaces. It is left to the reader to allow the different images to do their work and make new cognitive and affective associations.

Many of the themes which we have identified in Schubert’s ‘evening’ songs feature in a text by the ‘Catholic romantic’ poet Johann Petrus Silbert in 1818, ‘Abendbilder’ (evening pictures). It is the reader rather than the writer who takes responsibility for establishing the coherence of the varying images:

  • quietness and silence (leading to increased sensitivity on the part of the poet);
  • a different quality to the light as the sun sets and twilight ushers in night itself;
  • a transformation in the landscape (water and vegetation, in particular);
  • a heightened awareness of scents carried on the breeze;
  • the singing of the nightingale and the ringing of evening bells;
  • the emergence of the moon and the stars;
  • a vision of graves and a consciousness of the unavoidability of death;
  • the promise of rest;
  • the promise of a new day and new life.


Still beginnt's im Hain zu tauen; 
Ruhig webt der Dämmrung Grauen 
     Durch die Glut 
     Sanfter Flut, 
Durch das Grün umbüschter Auen, 
So die trunk'nen Blicke schauen.  

Sieh, der Raben Nachtgefieder 
Rauscht auf ferne Eichen nieder. 
     Balsamduft 
     Haucht die Luft; 
Philomelens Zauberlieder 
Hallet zart die Echo wieder.  

Horch! des Abendglöckleins Töne 
Mahnen ernst der Erde Söhne, 
     Dass ihr Herz 
     Himmelwärts, 
Sinnend ob der Heimat Schöne, 
Sich des Erdentands entwöhne.  

Durch der hohen Wolken Riegel 
Funkeln tausend Himmelssiegel, 
     Lunas Bild 
     Streuet mild 
In der Fluten klarem Spiegel, 
Schimmernd Gold auf Flur und Hügel.  

Von des Vollmonds Widerscheine 
Blitzet das bemooste, kleine 
     Kirchendach. 
     Aber ach,
Ringsum decken Leichensteine 
Der Entschlummerten Gebein.  

Ruht, o Traute! von den Wehen, 
Bis beim großen Auferstehen 
     Aus der Nacht 
     Gottes Macht 
Einst uns ruft, in seiner Höhen 
Ew'ge Wonnen einzugehen.

Dew is quietly beginning to settle in the grove;
The grey of dusk is calmly weaving its way
Through the glow
On the gentle waters,
Through the green of the meadows surrounded by bushes;
Thus it is that our drunken gaze beholds it.

Look! The nocturnal feathers of the ravens
Coming down cause a rustling in the distant oaks. - 
The scent of balsam
Can be smelt in the air;
Philomel's magical songs
Resound tenderly in the echo.

Listen! The notes of the evening bell
Are sending a powerful reminder to the sons of earth
That their hearts
Should turn heavenwards,
As they reflect on the beauty of home
And the need to break their attachment to the fripperies of earth.

Through the canopy of the high clouds
A thousand heavenly seals are glittering,
The image of Luna
Is gently being scattered
Over the clear mirror of the flooding waters,
Shining gold on the fields and hills.

From the reflection of the full moon
Flashes the moss-covered small
Roof of the church.
But oh!
All around, tombstones cover
The bones of those who have fallen asleep.

Dear friends, take a rest after your sorrows,
Until at the great resurrection,
Out of the night,
God's power
Eventually calls us up to his heights,
To enter into eternal bliss.

Silbert, Abendbilder D 650

☙

Descendant of: 

Inanimate nature   THE COURSE OF HUMAN LIFE: From the cradle to the grave   TIME  


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